The Spiral Goddess Collective~
A Movement and Vision for the Future
Educate. Embody. Empower.
Public Scholarship Meets Entrepreneurship
Mission & Vision
The Spiral Goddess Collective is rooted in feminist movement for embodied reclamation and collective transformation. Merging academic expertise with the experience and intuition that comes from decades of teaching fitness, yoga, conscious dance, and transdisciplinary cultural studies, Dr. Sarah Hentges provides a body of theory and a collective of integrative somatic practices that create a wide spectrum of embodied movement experiences for those who are seeking deeper personal/professional insights, critical/creative inspiration, non-religious spiritual development, embodied freedom, and politicized healing.
We exist to transform dominant narratives of wellness, fitness, and healing by centering embodied wisdom, critical consciousness, and collective care.
We grow to expand the reach and impact of embodied social justice theories and practices in and beyond the Bangor, Maine, community.
Introduction & Background
When I began The SGC, it was aspirational. I was acting on intuition, synchronicity, and inspiration. I hoped that it wouldn’t be just me. I hadn’t defined what collective might mean—it just felt right. I wanted it to be something more. And it has been. The SGC has attracted those who need it, those who have helped it grow into a full-fledged yoga studio and community hub.
Three years later, we now call our physical downtown Bangor space Spiral Studio and The Spiral Goddess Collective is transforming into something different—something that is a larger container for my work, my vision, my legacy.
What The Spiral Goddess Collective is not, is what many people think of when they hear the word collective. It is not an organization or business owned and controlled by the people who work in it—not exactly.
While I have always worked collaboratively—especially after my vision attracted people with a longing for the kind of work that we do at Spiral Studio—I have also shouldered the burden of the financial commitment and the toll that it takes to hold the energy of the container. At one point, after more than a year of being in business I was struggling. I found a new therapist who seemed promising, but when I told her about the struggles—about the weight of responsibility—she looked at me and flippantly said, “well is it a collective or is it yours. It can’t be both.”
That was our last session. Any therapist who cannot see the both/and aspects of my business, a reflection of the world that we live in, is not the therapist for me! But this also exposed a kernel of truth that I had to face—the power and potential of what I created alongside the real-world limitations of resources (of time, money, and energy). My business was not a collective in this sense.
And given ongoing financial and tangible limitations it cannot be this kind of collective; however, this got me thinking about how it is a collective.
A Collective of Ideas
The Spiral Goddess Collective is many things taken as a whole—as an aggregate. It brings together a group of people with issues and interests in common. We do things together. It is built upon collective wisdom—from academics and from the community. It is curated by bringing together synchronicities and resources from my work as a professor of transdisciplinary cultural studies and my work as a critical/creative embodied movement teacher. In all of these ways, it is a collective.
And I am further developing this collective through several branches—the physical location in Bangor, Maine, Spiral Studio; The Spiral Goddess School of Dance and Somatic Movement, which offers dance fitness instructor training, continuing education for yoga teachers, and a yoga teacher training program (in development); the transdisciplinary scholarship of embodied social justice movement praxis; Spiral Goddess Somatics; and the non-profit/mutual aid arm of The Spiral Goddess Collective Care Fund.
Taken together, these related entities are The Spiral Goddess Collective, a not-for-profit LLC, that I organize, own, and operate and the places and spaces where I make room for others to grow and develop as participants and co-creators.
Public, Transdisciplinary Scholarship
What does it mean to be a public scholar? To do cultural work that engages the larger community, to do work that is in the community?
What does it mean to do transdisciplinary work, work that crosses institutional boundaries and disciplinary structures, work that connects the theories of the academy with transformative models for workforce training, economic development, community care, embodied leadership, and innovative business models?
How can this work be supported by—even bolstered by—the institution?
How do we connect movement (social, physical, and cultural)—and engage the mind/body/spirit—in and out of the classroom? And why must we?
Conventional approaches—to academic scholarship, to teaching and learning, to service—have their place. But we need something more to meet the demands of the current cultural climate and the shared future. At this juncture, where uncertainty reigns, we need visionary thinkers. We need to imagine differently. We need to create ways of thinking, being, learning, moving, envisioning, and serving that build upon what works in our current systems and structures while also carving new paths toward a future where learning and working and living are dramatically different from the ways we have known.
I don’t know what the future looks like—none of us can know, but plenty of us work to foster a future where we can all flourish. Too many of these visions root into capitalism, greed, exploitation, violence, and power over structures—a future where those with more power and more resources determine the dimensions of our lives and our (lack of) possibilities. At the current moment, a future built upon these principles is too easy to imagine. We see it playing out right in front of our eyes.
We can try to ignore the future that emerges from our current sociopolitical direction; we can try to dig our heads and heels further into our silos and specializations. We can keep on keeping on because it is the only way we know how to survive. And many of us need to maintain the status quo—a foundation that has been created by decades of dedicated scholars, thinkers, and activists. There is much to celebrate and build upon.
But there is also much that isn’t working—and many things that we can let go of, re-envision, and transform. What if we root into compassion, creativity, transparency, collaboration, love, and interconnection? These are not new ideas, but they are ideas that tend to be explored in activist circles, community organizations, and other spaces outside of, peripheral to, or tangential to, academia.
Transdisciplinary Scholarship brings together academia and community in novel ways.
Transdisciplinary scholarship is an ecosystem that is largely misunderstood, and sometimes feared. We use the umbrella term of Interdisciplinary more often because this word describes the nature of our world and the kind of teaching and learning that is at the heart of a liberal arts education. Students learn and grow from a foundation of disciplinary knowledge and, ideally, make the kinds of connections that undergird an interdisciplinary exploration of knowledge, practices, ideas, and methods. This is the premise that forms the basis of general education and the educated person.
Transdisciplinary has at least two meanings, and both are important for an understanding of where we have been and where we need to go. First, transdisciplinary approaches shatter the boundaries that contain disciplinary knowledge—instead of relying upon these arbitrary, but necessary, structures that have served us so well for so long, we explore, combine, and create ideas that cannot be contained by any one discipline. This is already the natural progression of academia—the ways in which the sciences and social sciences combine to form, for instance, environmental sciences or the ways in which the sciences, social sciences, and humanities combine to form the messy amalgamation of cultural studies.
The second meaning of transdisciplinary speaks to the ways in which the university relates to the communities it is connected to—the ways in which research informs the development of programs and processes in institutional and organizational settings, or the ways in which the theories and methods that we create, refine, and teach become the basis for the work that our students do in their communities—through and beyond their education. Transdisciplinarity blurs the boundaries between the ivory tower and the grassroots. It is the novel and flexible foundation where we build our shared vision of what the world can be and the ways that education can be doula for this future waiting to be born.
And this is where entrepreneurship enters the conversation.
Heart-Centered Business & Entrepreneurship
I never intended to be an entrepreneur. The first time my mother called me an entrepreneur, I got anxious and nauseous. I just wanted a space where I could teach the embodied movement practices that I love. What grew from that desire is a full-fledged business.
Over the last three years of being a business owner I have struggled, slipped, and stumbled in a variety of ways. Each time I have gotten rocked back on my heels, pushed and pulled between difficult decisions, and knocked away from my center, I have had to pause, reflect, reconsider, and re-center myself—and I have been fortunate to have support from family, friends, and colleagues, as well as a business coach and therapist.
We all need this kind of support, and that’s part of what The Spiral Goddess Collective is all about. . .
This is a draft in progress.
This is the work of my body.
This is the body of my work.
It continues to grow and evolve.
The Spiral Goddess Collective is rooted in feminist movement for embodied reclamation and collective transformation. Merging academic expertise with the experience and intuition that comes from decades of teaching fitness, yoga, conscious dance, and transdisciplinary cultural studies, Dr. Sarah Hentges provides a body of theory and a collective of integrative somatic practices that create a wide spectrum of embodied movement experiences for those who are seeking deeper personal/professional insights, critical/creative inspiration, non-religious spiritual development, embodied freedom, and politicized healing.
We exist to transform dominant narratives of wellness, fitness, and healing by centering embodied wisdom, critical consciousness, and collective care.
We grow to expand the reach and impact of embodied social justice theories and practices in and beyond the Bangor, Maine, community.
Introduction & Background
When I began The SGC, it was aspirational. I was acting on intuition, synchronicity, and inspiration. I hoped that it wouldn’t be just me. I hadn’t defined what collective might mean—it just felt right. I wanted it to be something more. And it has been. The SGC has attracted those who need it, those who have helped it grow into a full-fledged yoga studio and community hub.
Three years later, we now call our physical downtown Bangor space Spiral Studio and The Spiral Goddess Collective is transforming into something different—something that is a larger container for my work, my vision, my legacy.
What The Spiral Goddess Collective is not, is what many people think of when they hear the word collective. It is not an organization or business owned and controlled by the people who work in it—not exactly.
While I have always worked collaboratively—especially after my vision attracted people with a longing for the kind of work that we do at Spiral Studio—I have also shouldered the burden of the financial commitment and the toll that it takes to hold the energy of the container. At one point, after more than a year of being in business I was struggling. I found a new therapist who seemed promising, but when I told her about the struggles—about the weight of responsibility—she looked at me and flippantly said, “well is it a collective or is it yours. It can’t be both.”
That was our last session. Any therapist who cannot see the both/and aspects of my business, a reflection of the world that we live in, is not the therapist for me! But this also exposed a kernel of truth that I had to face—the power and potential of what I created alongside the real-world limitations of resources (of time, money, and energy). My business was not a collective in this sense.
And given ongoing financial and tangible limitations it cannot be this kind of collective; however, this got me thinking about how it is a collective.
A Collective of Ideas
The Spiral Goddess Collective is many things taken as a whole—as an aggregate. It brings together a group of people with issues and interests in common. We do things together. It is built upon collective wisdom—from academics and from the community. It is curated by bringing together synchronicities and resources from my work as a professor of transdisciplinary cultural studies and my work as a critical/creative embodied movement teacher. In all of these ways, it is a collective.
And I am further developing this collective through several branches—the physical location in Bangor, Maine, Spiral Studio; The Spiral Goddess School of Dance and Somatic Movement, which offers dance fitness instructor training, continuing education for yoga teachers, and a yoga teacher training program (in development); the transdisciplinary scholarship of embodied social justice movement praxis; Spiral Goddess Somatics; and the non-profit/mutual aid arm of The Spiral Goddess Collective Care Fund.
Taken together, these related entities are The Spiral Goddess Collective, a not-for-profit LLC, that I organize, own, and operate and the places and spaces where I make room for others to grow and develop as participants and co-creators.
Public, Transdisciplinary Scholarship
What does it mean to be a public scholar? To do cultural work that engages the larger community, to do work that is in the community?
What does it mean to do transdisciplinary work, work that crosses institutional boundaries and disciplinary structures, work that connects the theories of the academy with transformative models for workforce training, economic development, community care, embodied leadership, and innovative business models?
How can this work be supported by—even bolstered by—the institution?
How do we connect movement (social, physical, and cultural)—and engage the mind/body/spirit—in and out of the classroom? And why must we?
Conventional approaches—to academic scholarship, to teaching and learning, to service—have their place. But we need something more to meet the demands of the current cultural climate and the shared future. At this juncture, where uncertainty reigns, we need visionary thinkers. We need to imagine differently. We need to create ways of thinking, being, learning, moving, envisioning, and serving that build upon what works in our current systems and structures while also carving new paths toward a future where learning and working and living are dramatically different from the ways we have known.
I don’t know what the future looks like—none of us can know, but plenty of us work to foster a future where we can all flourish. Too many of these visions root into capitalism, greed, exploitation, violence, and power over structures—a future where those with more power and more resources determine the dimensions of our lives and our (lack of) possibilities. At the current moment, a future built upon these principles is too easy to imagine. We see it playing out right in front of our eyes.
We can try to ignore the future that emerges from our current sociopolitical direction; we can try to dig our heads and heels further into our silos and specializations. We can keep on keeping on because it is the only way we know how to survive. And many of us need to maintain the status quo—a foundation that has been created by decades of dedicated scholars, thinkers, and activists. There is much to celebrate and build upon.
But there is also much that isn’t working—and many things that we can let go of, re-envision, and transform. What if we root into compassion, creativity, transparency, collaboration, love, and interconnection? These are not new ideas, but they are ideas that tend to be explored in activist circles, community organizations, and other spaces outside of, peripheral to, or tangential to, academia.
Transdisciplinary Scholarship brings together academia and community in novel ways.
Transdisciplinary scholarship is an ecosystem that is largely misunderstood, and sometimes feared. We use the umbrella term of Interdisciplinary more often because this word describes the nature of our world and the kind of teaching and learning that is at the heart of a liberal arts education. Students learn and grow from a foundation of disciplinary knowledge and, ideally, make the kinds of connections that undergird an interdisciplinary exploration of knowledge, practices, ideas, and methods. This is the premise that forms the basis of general education and the educated person.
Transdisciplinary has at least two meanings, and both are important for an understanding of where we have been and where we need to go. First, transdisciplinary approaches shatter the boundaries that contain disciplinary knowledge—instead of relying upon these arbitrary, but necessary, structures that have served us so well for so long, we explore, combine, and create ideas that cannot be contained by any one discipline. This is already the natural progression of academia—the ways in which the sciences and social sciences combine to form, for instance, environmental sciences or the ways in which the sciences, social sciences, and humanities combine to form the messy amalgamation of cultural studies.
The second meaning of transdisciplinary speaks to the ways in which the university relates to the communities it is connected to—the ways in which research informs the development of programs and processes in institutional and organizational settings, or the ways in which the theories and methods that we create, refine, and teach become the basis for the work that our students do in their communities—through and beyond their education. Transdisciplinarity blurs the boundaries between the ivory tower and the grassroots. It is the novel and flexible foundation where we build our shared vision of what the world can be and the ways that education can be doula for this future waiting to be born.
And this is where entrepreneurship enters the conversation.
Heart-Centered Business & Entrepreneurship
I never intended to be an entrepreneur. The first time my mother called me an entrepreneur, I got anxious and nauseous. I just wanted a space where I could teach the embodied movement practices that I love. What grew from that desire is a full-fledged business.
Over the last three years of being a business owner I have struggled, slipped, and stumbled in a variety of ways. Each time I have gotten rocked back on my heels, pushed and pulled between difficult decisions, and knocked away from my center, I have had to pause, reflect, reconsider, and re-center myself—and I have been fortunate to have support from family, friends, and colleagues, as well as a business coach and therapist.
We all need this kind of support, and that’s part of what The Spiral Goddess Collective is all about. . .
This is a draft in progress.
This is the work of my body.
This is the body of my work.
It continues to grow and evolve.
